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en2019 - VOA60Thu, 21 Mar 2019 14:58:32 -0400Pangea CMS – VOAGermany: Michael Jackson Exhibit Opens Amid Revived Abuse AllegationsAn exhibition of art about Michael Jackson is opening in Germany amid fresh controversy over the singer's alleged abuse of children.
Curator Nicholas Cullinan said Thursday the show at Bonn's Bundeskunsthalle was conceived long before the recent broadcast of HBO documentary "Leaving Neverland," which details Jackson's alleged molestation of two boys.
Some radio stations in North America have since stopped playing Jackson's music. Jackson died in 2009.
The show previously was exhibited in London.
Cullinan said it "was never celebratory. It's about the complexity of Michael Jackson, how he means very different things to many very different people."
Ellen Heimes, who heads a local branch of Germany's largest child protection organization, said the show should prompt a debate about spotting and preventing child abuse.
https://www.voanews.com/a/germany-michael-jackson-exhibit-opens-amid-revived-abuse-allegations/4841198.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/germany-michael-jackson-exhibit-opens-amid-revived-abuse-allegations/4841198.htmlThu, 21 Mar 2019 12:01:35 -0400Arts & CultureArts & CultureEuropeDubai Finds Itself Entangled in Case Against R. KellyDubai found itself entangled in the sex abuse case against American R&B singer R. Kelly on Thursday after the performer asked a U.S. judge to allow him to come to the Arabian Peninsula sheikhdom to perform shows and “meet with the royal family.”
Officials in Dubai and the wider United Arab Emirates did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press regarding the singer’s request, which an Illinois judge could consider at a court hearing on Friday.
However, Kelly’s request highlighted the close political and security ties between the U.S. and the UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms. It also comes as celebrities and even world leaders on the run have chosen Dubai as a safe haven.
Kelly was charged on Feb. 22 with 10 counts of aggravated sexual abuse for allegedly assaulting three underage girls and one adult woman, coming after the release of a documentary “Surviving R. Kelly.” He has denied ever abusing anyone.
In a court filing Wednesday, Kelly’s lawyer Steven A. Greenberg said the singer needed to raise money as “he has struggled of late to pay his child support and other child related expenses.”
“Before he was arrested Mr. Kelly had signed a contract to perform between 3-5 shows in Dubai, UAE, in April 2019,” the court filing read. “He requests permission to travel to Dubai for the shows. While there he is supposed to meet with the royal family.”
The filing does not elaborate on where Kelly is supposed to perform. There was no immediately publicized event for which Kelly was known to be a performer, nor did anyone in the entertainment industry hear about one.
However, Dubai’s luxury nightclubs often host hip hop and other artists for days at a time to perform and be seen among the millionaires of this skyscraper-studded city that is home to the world’s tallest building. Rich families also pay for celebrities at their parties.
It is also unclear what is meant by “royal family.” The UAE’s seven emirates are overseen by hereditary rulers who hold absolute power. Dubai’s ruler is Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, 69. His 36-year-old son, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, serves as Dubai’s crown prince and is next in line to be ruler.
The state-linked Abu Dhabi newspaper The National, which has written several times about the case against Kelly, reported Thursday on the singer’s request to come to Dubai, without mentioning his claim of seeing its rulers.
The R. Kelly filing comes as some in Dubai questioned the decision to host a Michael Jackson tribute show there later this month, after another documentary aired allegations the late pop star sexually abused children. Dubai Opera, which will host that event, told the AP the show would still be performed and that the venue will “have no further comment.”
Dubai, home to the world’s largest manmade archipelago the Palm Jumeriah and an indoor ski slope in its desert climes, has long drawn celebrities craving both luxury and seclusion. Will Smith is a repeated visitor. Lindsay Lohan lives off and on in the sheikhdom. David Beckham, Shah Rukh Khan and others are believed to own property in Dubai.
Yet it also has drawn world leaders seeking to escape their own countries. Pakistani Gen. Pervez Musharraf, facing criminal charges back home, fled to Dubai in 2016. Former Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra came to Dubai to avoid a criminal conviction in 2017, following in the footsteps of her brother, the ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The U.S. does not have an extradition treaty with the UAE. However, the U.S. stations some 5,000 troops in the country and Dubai’s Jebel Ali port is the biggest port of call for the U.S. Navy outside of America.
Kelly’s lawyer acknowledged that in his filing.
“The United States and the UAE have great relations and they (UAE) are not going to (jeopardize) that relationship to harbor R. Kelly,” the filing said.
https://www.voanews.com/a/dubai-finds-itself-entangled-in-case-against-r-kelly/4840925.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/dubai-finds-itself-entangled-in-case-against-r-kelly/4840925.htmlThu, 21 Mar 2019 08:48:06 -0400Arts & CultureMiddle EastArts & Culturewebdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)Harvard Sued for Profiting From Images of Enslaved AncestorsAn American woman has filed a lawsuit against Harvard University, accusing the prestigious institution of "shamelessly" profiting from photos of her ancestors who were slaves in the 19th century.
Tamara Lanier of Norwich, Connecticut, is suing the Ivy League school for "wrongful seizure, possession and expropriation'' of images of her great-great-great grandfather, Renty, and his daughter, Delia.
She wants Harvard to hand the images over to her family and pay an unspecified amount in damages.
Early type of photography used
The lawsuit says the 1850 daguerreotypes, an early type of photograph, were commissioned by Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz who was seeking racially "pure'' slaves born in Africa.
The father and daughter were stripped and photographed from various angles in an effort to "prove" Agassiz's theory that black people are inferior and to "justify their subjugation, exploitation and segregation."
"To Agassiz, Renty and Delia were nothing more than research specimens,'' the suit says. "The violence of compelling them to participate in a degrading exercise designed to prove their own subhuman status would not have occurred to him, let alone mattered.''
The suit says Harvard has over the years exploited the images, including using an image of Renty to promote a 2017 conference called "Universities and Slavery: Bound by History," which explored the relationships between universities and slavery, and as a cover of a book that explores the use of photography in anthropology.
History shared by mother
Lanier said as a child she heard stories about Renty from her mother who made sure to pass down family history. She alleges that in 2011 she wrote to then-Harvard president Drew Faust, detailing her ties to Renty.
At the time, she wanted to learn more about the images and how they would be used. In another letter sent in 2017, she demanded that Harvard relinquish the photos. In both cases, she said, Harvard did not address her requests.
The suit charges that "by contesting Lanier's claim of lineage, Harvard is shamelessly capitalizing on the intentional damage done to black Americans' genealogy by a century's worth of policies that forcibly separated families, erased slaves' family names, withheld birth and death records, and criminalized literacy.''
https://www.voanews.com/a/harvard-sued-for-profiting-from-images-of-enslaved-ancestors-/4840194.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/harvard-sued-for-profiting-from-images-of-enslaved-ancestors-/4840194.htmlWed, 20 Mar 2019 18:08:09 -0400USAUSAArts & Culturewebdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)Labrador Retriever Most Pup-ular US Dog Breed for 28th YearLabrador retrievers aren't letting go of their hold on U.S. dog lovers, but German shorthaired pointers are tugging on the top ranks of doggy popularity, according to new American Kennel Club data.
Labs topped the list for the 28th year in a row. Yet there's been plenty of movement over time on the purebred pup-ularity ladder.
Here's a look at the 2018 rankings being released Wednesday.
Top top 10
After Labs, the top five breeds nationwide are German shepherds, golden retrievers, French bulldogs and bulldogs. Rounding out the top 10 are beagles, poodles, Rottweilers, German shorthaired pointers and Yorkshire terriers.
Labs smashed the record for longest tenure as top dog back in 2013. Fans credit the Lab's generally amiable nature and aptitude in many canine roles: bomb-sniffer, service dog, hunters' helper, dog-sport competitor and patient family pet.
At No. 9, the German shorthaired pointer notched its highest ranking since getting AKC recognition in 1930. These strikingly speckled hunting dogs are also versatile — some work as drug — and bomb-detectors — and active companions.
“I think people are learning about how fun the breed is,” says AKC spokeswoman Brandi Hunter.
The suddenly ubiquitous French bulldog remains the fourth most popular breed for a second year, after surging from 83rd a quarter-century ago.
The numbers
The rankings reflect a breed's prevalence among the 580,900 puppies and other purebred dogs newly registered in 2018 with the AKC, the country's oldest such registry. Some 88,175 of these dogs were Labs.
AKC says registrations, which are voluntary, have been growing for six years.
Estimates of the total number of pet dogs nationwide range from about 70 million to 90 million.
The consistent fave
Beagles, now No. 6, can boast they're uniquely beloved. No other breed has made the top 10 in every decade since record-keeping began in the 1880s.
Why? “They're a good general family dog,” lively, friendly, relatively low-maintenance and comfortable with children, says breeder Kevin Shupenia of Dacula, Georgia. Beagles also work sniffing out contraband meat and plants at airports, detecting bedbugs in homes and doing their traditional job: hunting rabbits.
“They have a sense of humor, and they're just characters,” Shupenia says.
The rarest of them all
The most scant breed was the sloughi (pronounced SLOO'-ghee). The greyhound-like dog has a long history in North Africa but garnered AKC recognition only three years ago. It replaces the Norwegian lundehund in the rarest-breed spot.
How did doodles do?
Wonder where goldendoodles, puggles, or cockapoos stand? You won't find these and other popular “designer dogs” among the 193 breeds recognized and ranked by the AKC.
That's not to say they never will be, if their fanciers so desire. New breeds join the club periodically, after meeting criteria that include having at least 300 dogs nationwide and three generations.
Meanwhile, designer and just plain mixed-breed dogs can sign up with AKC to compete in such sports as agility, dock diving and obedience.
The whys, pros and cons of popularity
Many factors can influence a breed's popularity: ease of care, exposure from TV and movies, and famous owners, to name a few.
Popularity spurts can expand knowledge about a breed, but many people in dogdom rue slipshod breeding by people trying to cash in on sudden cachet.
Elaine Albert, a longtime chow chow owner and sometime breeder, is glad the ancient Chinese dog is now 75th in the rankings, after leaping into the top 10 in the 1980s. Albert recalls that she and other chow rescue volunteers were swamped as people gave up dogs with temperament and health problems, which she attributes to careless breeding.
“I certainly wouldn't want (chows) to be number one, ever,” says Albert, of Hauppauge, New York. “They belong where they are.... They're not for everybody.”
On the other hand, aficionados of rare breeds sometimes worry about sustaining them.
The purebred debate
Some animal-welfare groups feel the pursuit of purebred dogs puts their looks ahead of their health and diverts people from adopting pets. Critics also say the AKC needs to do more to thwart puppy mills.
The club says it encourages responsible breeding of healthy dogs, not as a beauty contest but to preserve traits that have helped dogs do particular jobs.
https://www.voanews.com/a/labrador-retriever-most-pup-ular-us-dog-breed-for-28th-year/4839879.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/labrador-retriever-most-pup-ular-us-dog-breed-for-28th-year/4839879.htmlWed, 20 Mar 2019 15:04:49 -0400USAUSAArts & Culturewebdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)Tokyo Unveils 'Cherry Blossom' Olympic TorchOrganizers of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics on Wednesday unveiled a cherry-blossom shaped torch for the Games as the city prepares for the famed flower season to begin in coming days.
The top part of the torch is shaped in the traditional emblem of the sakura, or cherry blossom using the same cutting-edge technology as in production of Japan's bullet trains, the organizers said.
The shiny rose-gold torch, which is 71 centimeters (28 inches) long and weighs 1.2 kilograms (2 pounds 10 ounces), uses aluminum construction waste from temporary housing built for victims of the 2011 quake and tsunami.
"Cherry blossoms drawn by kids in the disaster-hit area (in Fukushima)... inspired me," designer Tokujin Yoshioka, whose works are known internationally, told reporters.
Fukushima was chosen as the starting point for the Olympic torch relay.
The passing of the flame is scheduled to start on March 26, 2020, and the torch will head south to the sub-tropical island of Okinawa – the starting point for the 1964 Tokyo Games relay – before returning north and arriving in the Japanese capital on July 10.
The designer added the torch is designed to ensure the flame will not go out even during the typhoon season.
The March 2011 tsunami, triggered by a massive undersea quake, killed around 18,000 people and swamped the Fukushima nuclear plant, sending its reactors into meltdown and leading to the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
More than 50,000 people have not returned to their home towns.
Japan has dubbed the 2020 Games the "Reconstruction Olympics" and wants to showcase recovery in regions devastated by the disaster.
https://www.voanews.com/a/tokyo-unveils-cherry-blossom-olympic-torch/4839269.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/tokyo-unveils-cherry-blossom-olympic-torch/4839269.htmlWed, 20 Mar 2019 08:50:44 -0400East AsiaEast AsiaArts & Culturewebdesk@voanews.com (Agence France-Presse)In End of 20th Century Fox, a New Era Dawns for HollywoodThe Fox Studio backlot, first built in 1926 on a Culver City ranch in Los Angeles, was enormous. Before much of it was sold off in the 1960s, it was four times the size of its current, and still huge, 53 acres.
Shirley Temple's bungalow still sits on the lot, as does the piano where John Williams composed, among other things, the score to "Star Wars." A waiter in the commissary might tell you where Marilyn Monroe once regularly sat.
When the Walt Disney Co.'s $71.3 billion acquisition of Fox is completed at 12:02 a.m. Wednesday, the storied lot — the birthplace of CinemaScope, "The Sound of Music" and "Titanic" — will no longer house one of the six major studios. It will become the headquarters for Rupert Murdoch's new Fox Corp., (he is keeping Fox News and Fox Broadcasting) and Fox's film operations, now a Disney label, will stay on for now as renters under a seven-year lease agreement.
The history of Hollywood is littered with changes of studio ownership; even Fox Film Corporation founder William Fox, amid the Depression, lost control of the studio that still bears his name. But the demise of 20th Century Fox as a standalone studio is an epochal event in Hollywood, one that casts long shadows over a movie industry grappling with new digital competitors from Silicon Valley and facing the possibility of further contraction. After more than eight decades of supremacy, the Big Six are down one.
"It's a sad day for students of film history and I think it's potentially a sad day for audiences too," said Tom Rothman, former chairman of Fox and the current chief of Sony Pictures. "There will just be less diversity in the marketplace."
Disney's acquisition has endless repercussions but it's predicated largely on positioning Disney — already the market-leader in Hollywood — for the future. Disney, girding for battle with Netflix, Apple and Amazon, needs more content for its coming streaming platform, Disney+, and it wants control of its content across platforms.
"The pace of disruption has only hastened," Disney chief Robert A. Iger said when the deal was first announced. "This will allow us to greatly accelerate our director-to-consumer strategy."
The Magic Kingdom will add 20th Century Fox alongside labels like Marvel, Pixar and Lucasfilm. But film production at Fox, which has in recent years released 12-17 films a year, is expected to wane. Due to duplication with Disney staff, layoffs will be in the thousands.
Disney will also take over FX, NatGeo and a controlling stake in Hulu, which has more than 20 million customers. It will gain control of some of the largest franchises in movies, including "Avatar," "Alien" and "The Planet of the Apes." Fox's television studios also net Disney the likes of "Modern Family," "This Is Us" and "The Simpsons." Homer, meet Mickey.
Some parts of Fox, like the John Landgraf-led FX and Fox Searchlight, the specialty label overseen by Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley, are expected to be kept largely intact. Searchlight, the regular Oscar contender behind films such as "12 Years a Slave," "The Shape of Water" and "The Favourite," could yield Disney something it's never had before: a best picture winner at the Academy Awards.
Nowhere is the culture clash between the companies more apparent than in "Deadpool," Fox's gleefully profane R-rated superhero. While Spider-Man still resides with Sony, Disney now adds Deadpool, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four to its bench of Marvel characters. How they will all fit with Disney's PG-13 mission remains to be seen, though Iger last month suggested in a conference call with investors that there may be room for an R-rated Marvel brand as long as audiences know what's coming.
The question of how or if Disney will inherit Fox's edginess matters because Fox has long built itself on big bets and technological gambits. It was the first studio built for sound. It was nearly bankrupted by the big-budget Elizabeth Taylor epic "Cleopatra." It backed Cameron's seemingly-ill-fated "Titanic," as well as Ang Lee's "The Life of Pi" and the Oscar-winning hit "Bohemian Rhapsody."
"We were a studio of risk and innovation," says Rothman, who also founded Fox Searchlight. "It was a very daring place, creatively. That's what the movies should be."
But will the more button-down Disney have the stomach for such movies? "Deadpool" creator Robert Liefeld, for example, has said Fox's plans for an X-Force movie have been tabled, a "victim of the merger."
Some were surprised regulators gave the deal relatively quick approval. The Department of Justice approved the acquisition in about six months, about four times less than the time it took investigating AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner. The New York Times editorial page suggested the deal benefited from President Trump's relationship with Murdoch.
"Disney will have probably north of 40 percent market share in the U.S. That's one area where a deal does suggest that the market influence is going to be outsized," says Tuna Amobi, a media and entertainment analyst with investment firm CFRA. "Having one studio control that much is unprecedented. And it could increase from there given the pipeline that we see."
Disney is about to have more influence on the movies Americans and the rest of the world see than any company ever has. Last year, it had 26 percent of the U.S. market with just 10 movies which together grossed more than $3 billion domestically and $7.3 billion worldwide. Fox usually counts for about 12 percent of market share.
Fewer studios could potentially mean fewer movies. That's a concern for both consumers and theater owners, many of whom already rely heavily on Disney blockbusters to sell tickets and popcorn.
"Certainly, consolidation poses a challenge in some respects to the supply of movies," says John Fithian, president and chief executive of the National Organization of Theater Owners. "The fewer suppliers you have, the chances are we're going to get fewer movies from those suppliers."
But Fithian believes other companies are stepping into the breach, and he holds out hope that Netflix might eventually embrace more robust theatrical release. More importantly, Fox was bought by a company in Disney that is, as Fithian said, "the biggest supporter of the theatrical window."
Still, Disney has been willing to throw its weight around. Ahead of the release of "The Last Jedi," the studio insisted on more onerous terms from some theater owners, including a higher percentage of ticket sales.
More experimentation in distribution is coming. Later this year, WarnerMedia, whose Warner Bros. is regularly second in market share to Disney, will launch its own streaming platform. Apple is ramping up movie production. Amazon Studios is promising bigger, more attention-getting projects.
Ahead of a blizzard of new streaming options, Fox — and a giant piece of film history — will fade into an ever-expanding Disney world. Film historian Michael Troyan, author of "20th Century Fox: A Century of Entertainment," has studied enough of Hollywood's past to know that relentless change is an innate part of the business.
"It's sad when any historical empire like that comes to end," says Michael Troyan. "You can record in other places but when you're on a lot like Fox, you feel the gravitas, you feel the history."
Rothman says he will pause for a "wistful moment" Wednesday, but he believes consolidation doesn't mean obsolescence.
"I don't think it remotely arguers the end of the glories of the film business overall," says Rothman. "I believe there remains eternal appetite for original, vibrant, creative theatrical storytelling."
https://www.voanews.com/a/in-end-of-20th-century-fox-a-new-era-dawns-for-hollywood/4838984.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/in-end-of-20th-century-fox-a-new-era-dawns-for-hollywood/4838984.htmlWed, 20 Mar 2019 01:00:49 -0400Arts & CultureArts & CultureEconomywebdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)Growing Pains in Ethiopia: Film Spotlights Hidden Cost of Urban GrowthLiving in a tool shed on the outskirts of Ethiopia's capital, 10-year-old Asalif Tewold straddles a unique space between modernity and tradition.
In his short life, he has lived on a rural farm and in the shadows of a towering condominium complex — learning how to dodge dangerous hyenas and land developers — as he and his dispossessed family try to find a place to call home.
The young boy and his mother are the subject of the film "Anbessa," meaning "lion" in Amharic, one of Ethiopia's main languages, that tracks their displacement off farmland to make way for a block of flats on the fringes of Addis Ababa.
The playful protagonist, Asalif, takes center stage of the documentary by U.S. filmmaker Mo Scarpelli, premiering in London on Wednesday at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival — as he lives and plays in the looming shadow of the buildings.
"Asalif is the perfect person ... he lives literally on the rift of old and new," Scarpelli told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"Anbessa" follows Asalif over two years as he seeks to ward off roaming hyenas both literally in the forest and in the form of lurking land developers.
As he carves out a space to call home, he and millions of others globally are learning that "progress" is not for them, said Scarpelli, as the film analyses universal themes of gentrification and urbanization.
Ethiopia, a nation of 105 million and an economic power in East Africa, is grappling with a housing crisis and new developments are leaving millions like Asalif out of the picture, Scarpelli said.
About 40 percent of Africa's 1 billion people live in towns and cities and the urban population is expected to double over the next 25 years, the World Bank predicts.
"I do feel like there's this kind of sweeping narrative about the future and about a better way of life that for sure has been exported from Europe and North America to the rest of the world," said Scarpelli. "That this is the way we should live - bigger is better."
But the film is concerned with what gets lost along the way, from storytelling to family structures, steam-rolled by modernity, she said.
In Ethiopia, all land is formally owned by the state, making security of tenure rare and dispossession easier, said Felix Horne, senior Ethiopia researcher for Human Rights Watch.
Recourse to courts is often difficult, making forced displacement a major social issue, he said.
Lions and Hyenas
The contested edges of Asalif's home also shed light on wider issues in Africa's second-most populous nation, and a country in the midst of social and economic change.
Unrest spread in Ethiopia in 2015 and 2016, sparked initially by an urban development plan for the capital.
Anger over land expropriations and unfair compensation, in particular, drove protests, leading eventually to a new reformist Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in 2018.
"Most residents of the city do feel stretched because there isn't enough supply of decent housing for many of them," said Mekonnen Firew Ayano, an Ethiopian legal expert at Harvard University in the United States.
"Rural dwellers have been pushed away from their land without any meaningful alternative."
Ayano said the government's housing policy targeted the middle and upper social classes and that the pace of growth was leaving many behind, which could stoke ethnic and social tensions.
Asalif's story does not, however, present a clear division between good and evil, as the new tower blocks offer treasures and adventures for the child.
"Everybody living on either side is connected to each other, they can't not be, and that's the way that the world is," said Scarpelli.
The film ends with Asalif, the metaphorical lion, besting the hyenas, and his future remains promising, said Scarpelli.
"I don't know how things will unfold, but I do have a hope that the average Ethiopian will have more of a say on what happens to their land and their family moving forward."
https://www.voanews.com/a/growing-pains-in-ethiopia-film-spotlights-hidden-cost-of-urban-growth/4839011.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/growing-pains-in-ethiopia-film-spotlights-hidden-cost-of-urban-growth/4839011.htmlWed, 20 Mar 2019 00:45:09 -0400Arts & CultureArts & Culturewebdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)Iran's Woes Briefly Go Up in Smoke During Fire FestivalIran's many woes briefly went up in smoke on Tuesday as Iranians observed a nearly 4,000-year-old Persian tradition known as the Festival of Fire.
The celebration is held on the last Tuesday night before Nowruz, or the Iranian New Year, which will be celebrated Thursday. The annual ritual dates back to at least 1700 B.C. and is linked to the Zoroastrian religion.
To celebrate, people light bonfires, set off fireworks and send wish lanterns floating off into the night sky. Others jump over and around fires, chanting "My yellow is yours, your red is mine," invoking the replacement of ills with warmth and energy.
The fire festival also features an Iranian version of trick-or-treating, with people going door to door and being given a holiday mix of nuts and berries, as well as buckets of water.
Arezou Abarghouei held hands with her daughter and husband as they leaped over a small fire in Tehran.
"Iranians love to celebrate, and they need it, especially now, when all of us are facing economic problems," she said. "This is a way to forget these difficulties just for one night.''
This year Nowruz comes at a time of growing economic hardship following U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal and restore crippling sanctions. Iran's currency has plummeted in recent months, sending prices skyrocketing and wiping out many people's life savings.
The fire festival is one of two holidays with ancient roots that are still observed each year in the Islamic Republic, the other being a picnic day in early April.
The holiday offers a rare opportunity for Iranians to dance and celebrate in public, something authorities usually frown on. Police warned people to stay away from major streets and public squares, but largely ignored celebrations held inside neighborhoods.
Hard-liners discourage such celebrations, viewing them as pagan holdovers. The Western-allied monarchy that was toppled by the 1979 Islamic revolution had emphasized the country's pre-Islamic past, presenting itself as heir to a Persian civilization stretching back to antiquity.
The semi-official Fars news agency quoted head of the country's emergency committee as saying 155 people were injured during the celebrations, mainly from fireworks. It said 22 people lost limbs and 48 suffered eye injuries.
https://www.voanews.com/a/iran-s-woes-briefly-go-up-in-smoke-during-fire-festival/4838944.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/iran-s-woes-briefly-go-up-in-smoke-during-fire-festival/4838944.htmlTue, 19 Mar 2019 23:00:05 -0400Arts & CultureMiddle EastArts & CultureVOA News on Iranwebdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)Now 30, 'The Little Mermaid' Paved Way for Elsa, AnnaIt's not uncommon for people to just look at Jodi Benson and burst into tears.
Sometimes they hyperventilate or scream. But mostly they break down and start sobbing. Benson will hold them, heaving in her arms, and pat their back gently.
Benson isn't a household name, but for many she's an intimate part of their childhood. She supplied the singing and speaking voice of Ariel, the heroine of the 1989 animated Disney hit The Little Mermaid, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year.
Benson says she will sometimes watch as the stunned movie's fans virtually go back in time in front of her. "It triggers a memory for them," she says.
"They remember who they were with when they saw the movie the first time. Maybe that sibling is no longer with them, that grandparent is no longer with them. It reminds them of a relationship that had been broken with a parent. So they have all sorts of emotions that go on."
​The Little Mermaid has changed a lot of lives, not least of which is Benson's, who has continued to perform Ariel virtually every weekend in concerts as well as on film in the Wreck-It Ralph franchise.
The Little Mermaid also had a big role in making Disney into an animation juggernaut and reviving the art form. Many believe we'd never have Anna and Elsa from Frozen without first having Ariel.
"Disney was starting to get into a groove that would continue, but I feel like a lot of that started with The Little Mermaid," says Ron Clements, who co-wrote and co-directed the film.
Landing the part
Benson was a rising Broadway star when Ariel came into her orbit. She had been in a short-lived musical Smile when Howard Ashman, the musical's lyricist and story writer, invited the out-of-work cast to audition for his next project, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid.
Producers wanted the singing and speaking voice to be supplied by the same actress. So Benson, a lyric soprano, sang the signature Part of Your World on a reel-to-reel tape and was handed a few of pages of dialogue.
"I ran into the ladies' room," she recalls, "and waited for everybody to get out of the stalls and started talking to the mirror, sort of trying to come up with what would she sound like at 16."
Benson, it turned out, was a master mimic. She had spent countless hours in her room as a child with her guitar, singing along to records by Barbra Streisand, Carole King and James Taylor, as well as Marvin Hamlisch's A Chorus Line.
"I would start to just sing like them. But it wasn't like I was trying to be them. It's just that's what I heard. And so that's just what you do. You just sound like what you been listening to," she says.
A year or so after auditioning for Ariel, she got the call that she'd won the role. "I completely forgot that I had auditioned," she says. Back then, voiceover work wasn't very glamorous and big celebrities wouldn't consider it.
"It wasn't a good job. Doing voiceovers was what you would do when your career was on the back half, when it was tanking," says Benson. She thought Ariel would be just another notch on her resume. It was not.
"Things just changed overnight," she says.
Breakthrough film
Propelled by such Alan Menken songs as Under the Sea and Kiss the Girl, the film won two Grammys and earned three Academy Award nominations. It was critically acclaimed, with Roger Ebert calling it a "jolly and inventive animated fantasy," and would go to earn $211 million worldwide. Parents of children with learning disabilities have told Benson their child's first words were from the film.
A live-action remake is in the works, featuring new songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who created Hamilton. He loved the 1989 animated film so much, its partly the reason he named his first child Sebastian — the mermaid's crab friend.
It was the kind of hit that Clements and his animators at Disney had long been hoping for. He had started at Disney in 1974 and was part of a new generation of artists trying to change the notion that animation was just for kids.
Clements had pitched a two-page treatment of the musical to then-studio head Michael Eisner and was given the green light. For Clements and his partner, John Musker, the stakes were high: It was the first fairy tale Disney had done for some three decades.
"There was a feeling — all through Little Mermaid — that this film had potential to be the film that could break through and work the way we were all hungry for and hoping for," recalls Clements, who went on to co-direct Aladdin and Hercules.
"It was really, really gratifying that it did break through. It broke through the stigma that animated films were just for kids. It became a date movie. People started taking Disney animation seriously again."
Over the past 30 years, Ariel has become the bridge between classic princesses like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and modern ones like Mulan and Merida. And Benson has become the official Ariel ambassador, tapped to do sequels, video games and shorts, in addition to voicing other characters like Barbie in the Toy Story franchise.
Her arms are always open to fans and she's now welcoming the fourth generation to The Little Mermaid. So feel free to cry on her shoulder.
"It doesn't feel like a job. It just feels like a way of life more than more than anything else," she says. "You have this multigenerational moment that families can share together. And I get to be a small piece of the puzzle of their story."
https://www.voanews.com/a/the-little-mermaid-paved-way-for-elsa-anna/4838954.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/the-little-mermaid-paved-way-for-elsa-anna/4838954.htmlTue, 19 Mar 2019 21:25:30 -0400Arts & CultureArts & Culturewebdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)Jordan Peele Dares Everyone to Look at Horrors of 'Us'Jordan Peele's sweet spot as a filmmaker are the "pit in your stomach" moments. That thing that happens when you realize the woman stirring the tea isn't just there for conversation. When you notice that the help is a little off. Or, as in his new film Us, when you see that the family of four standing in your driveway late at night looks exactly like you.
Peele knows how to get under your skin and stay there, and it's what made him the must-see horror filmmaker of the moment. Us, out nationwide Friday, is only his second and yet it's been an event-in-the-making ever since it was announced. That's what happens when your debut is Get Out.
Get Out wasn't even finished when the former sketch-comedian started cooking up the idea for his follow-up about doppelgangers, loosely inspired by the Twilight Zone episode "Mirror Image." Then the wild success of Get Out — four Oscars nominations, one win (Peele for original screenplay), over $255 million in tickets sold against a $4.5 million budget, and general cultural impact — put Peele on another level. So by the time Universal Pictures agreed to make Us, not only did he have a budget over five times higher than his first, but he had his pick of collaborators too.
"Because of Get Out, I was privileged enough to be able to tap the best talent in the industry," Peele said recently.
Nyong'o and Duke
That goes for stars Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke, who play dual roles as the nuclear American family, the Wilsons, and the terrifying red jumpsuit-wearing and gold scissor-wielding Red and Abraham, as well as the below-the-line talent: Production designer Ruth De Jong (Twin Peaks); cinematographer Mike Gioulakis (It Follows); and costume designer Kym Barrett (The Matrix) among them.
"I had an amazing team on Get Out," Peele said. "But this group sort of allowed me to stretch a little bit more."
Duke was impressed by his calm. He knew there were "sophomore pressures" — he had his own set following his breakout role in Black Panther — but said Peele never brought any of that to set.
"Day one, [Peele] said, 'Before we do anything I just want to let you guys know that I'm here for you. I won't stop until we get the shot. When I say cut, we got the shot. So trust me, believe in me,"' Duke said. "And I was like, that's all I need."
Duke and Nyong'o already had a short hand working together. Yes, they had just both been in Black Panther, but they were also Yale Drama School graduates and have seen one another do everything from clown work to Chekov.
"It was great to be able to perform with someone who I value as much more than a friend — I value her as a cohort. I value her as an ally. I went to work every day trying to make sure we could create a space where she could excel. I thought that was my duty," Duke said. "We had a female lead and in our climate in Hollywood we were doing the work and leading by example."
And Peele put them both through the wringer. The days on set as the Wilsons were full of laughter and fun. But the days as the murderous doppelgangers known as The Tethered, Peele said, felt like "a morgue."
"The air getting sucked out of the room is an understatement. But it was kind of cool," Peele said. The actors went "pretty method" on those days.
Nyong'o had it especially hard. She'd chosen to affect a strained vocal condition — spasmodic dysphonia — to make Red even more haunting. And she had to do Red's first big monologue 11 times with that raspy, painful sounding voice.
Horror movie
Us is chock full of pop culture references, subtle and overt: A Jaws T-shirt here, a C.H.U.D. VHS there. Even the setting, the Santa Cruz boardwalk, is a callback to The Lost Boys. And every reference works "on two different levels and hopefully more," Peele said. But don't stress if you don't catch or decipher them all.
"There are many of these things that only I will ever know," Peele revealed.
Although one thing is not really up for interpretation: the genre. He tweeted the other day that "Us is a horror movie."
"I can see the debate already beginning and people are calling it different things. I have a little bit of fun with the big genre conversation," he said. "But I saw enough little pieces of like 'horror-thriller,' 'horror-comedy,' 'social-thriller,' out there that I just want to make it nice clean and defined: It's a horror movie."
Race
Peele hasn't tired of explaining that Us isn't about race, either. Though he understands why people might think it would be, considering Get Out.
"I know the way we are, the lack of representation in the industry and genre has led us to this point where it's almost impossible to not see race in a movie with a black family in the center. And I wanted people to be ready to expand their expectations," Peele said. "My fear was if I didn't say anything, that people would take away that this was a movie about black-on-black violence which was not my intention."
As for whether Peele has felt internal or external pressures to match Get Out's magic?
"There are, but it's OK," he laughed. "It's just movies."
https://www.voanews.com/a/jordan-peele-dares-everyone-to-look-at-horrors-of-us/4838919.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/jordan-peele-dares-everyone-to-look-at-horrors-of-us/4838919.htmlTue, 19 Mar 2019 20:33:01 -0400Arts & CultureArts & Culturewebdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)Warner Bros.' Chief Tsujihara Steps Down Following ScandalWarner Bros. chief Kevin Tsujihara, one of the highest ranking Hollywood executives to be felled by sexual misconduct allegations, stepped down from the studio Monday following claims that he promised roles to an actress with whom he was having an affair.
WarnerMedia chief executive John Stankey announced Tsujihara's exit as chairman and chief executive of Warner Bros., saying his departure was in the studio's ``best interest.''
"Kevin has contributed greatly to the studio's success over the past 25 years and for that we thank him," said Stankey. "Kevin acknowledges that his mistakes are inconsistent with the company's leadership expectations and could impact the company's ability to execute going forward."
Earlier this month, WarnerMedia launched an investigation after a March 6 Hollywood Reporter story detailed text messages between Tsujihara and British actress Charlotte Kirk going back to 2013. The messages suggested a quid pro quo sexual relationship between the aspiring actress and the studio head in which he made promises that he'd introduce her to influential executives and she'd be considered for roles in movies and television.
In a memo to Warner Bros. staff on Monday, Tsujihara said he was departing "after lengthy introspection, and discussions with John Stankey over the past week."
"It has become clear that my continued leadership could be a distraction and an obstacle to the company's continued success," said Tsujihara. "The hard work of everyone within our organization is truly admirable, and I won't let media attention on my past detract from all the great work the team is doing."
Tsujihara's attorney, Bert H. Deixler, earlier stated that Tsujihara "had no direct role in the hiring of this actress." He declined further comment Monday.
Tsujihara, who has headed the Burbank, California, studio since 2013, earlier pledged to fully cooperate with the studio's investigation and apologized to Warner Bros. staff for "mistakes in my personal life that have caused pain and embarrassment to the people I love the most."
The scandal unfolded just as Warner Bros. was restructuring on the heels of AT&T's takeover of WarnerMedia, previously known as Time Warner. Tsujihara's role had just been expanded on Feb. 28 to include global kids and family entertainment including oversight of Adult Swim and the Cartoon Network.
Kirk appeared in Warner Bros.' "How to Be Single" in 2016 and "Ocean's 8" in 2018. She has denied any inappropriate behavior on the part of Tsujihara or two other executives, Brett Ratner and James Packer, who she communicated with. "Mr. Tsujihara never promised me anything," Kirk said in an earlier statement.
But the details of the leaked text messages between Tsujihara and Kirk immediately put his future at Warner Bros. in jeopardy. Kirk wrote in one 2015 message to him: "Are u going to help me like u said u would?" Tsujhara responded, "Richard will be reaching out to u tonight," referring to Richard Brener, president of Warner Bros.' New Line label.
Other exchanges suggested the kind of give-and-take of Hollywood's "casting couch" culture. Kirk was introduced to Tsujihara by James Packer, the Australian billionaire. Warner Bros. was then finalizing a $450-million co-financing deal with Packer and Brett Ratner, the director-producer. In a message to Ratner, Kirk said she was "used as icing on the cake."
WarnerMedia, the studio's parent company, said Monday that its internal investigation into the situation, carried out by a third-party law firm, will continue.
Tsujihara's exit follows other high-profile executive departures in the post-Harvey Weinstein (hash)MeToo era. CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves was pushed out after numerous women accused him of sexual harassment. Walt Disney Animation chief John Lasseter was ousted after he acknowledged missteps in his behavior with employees.
The 54-year-old Tsujihara, the first executive of Asian descent to head a major Hollywood studio, presided over a largely positive Warner Bros. era with little fanfare. A former home video and video game executive at the company, Tsujihara focused on franchise creation, some of which have worked, some of which haven't.
After poor marks from fans and critics, the studio's DC Comics films have recently been retooled and found their footing in hits like "Wonder Woman" and "Aquaman." Other franchises — like "The Lego Movie" and the "Harry Potter" spinoff "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" — have seen diminishing returns on their latest incarnations. The studio has also fostered its connection with filmmakers like Christopher Nolan ("Dunkirk'') and Bradley Cooper (whose "A Star Is Born" was Warner Bros.' top Oscar contender). Warner Bros. last year amassed $5.6 billion in global ticket sales, its best haul ever.
The studio will now begin a search for a new chief as it also prepares to launch a streaming service designed to compete with Netflix.
https://www.voanews.com/a/warner-bros-chief-tsujihara-steps-down-following-scandal/4837429.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/warner-bros-chief-tsujihara-steps-down-following-scandal/4837429.htmlTue, 19 Mar 2019 07:28:45 -0400Arts & CultureArts & CultureEconomywebdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)Kyodo: Japan Olympic Committee Chief Takeda to ResignJapanese Olympic Committee (JOC) chief Tsunekazu Takeda, who is expected to announce plans to step down on Tuesday, is also set to resign as a member of the International Olympics Committee, Kyodo News reported.
French prosecutors questioned Takeda in Paris and placed him under formal investigation in December for suspected corruption in Japan's successful bid to host the 2020 Summer Games.
French investigators have led a years-long probe into corruption in athletics and in early 2016 extended their inquiry into the bidding and voting processes for the hosting of the 2016 Rio de Janeiro and the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Multimillion-dollar payments made by the Tokyo bid committee to a Singapore consulting company are under probe and Takeda is suspected of paying bribes to secure the winning bid.
Takeda has denied any wrongdoing, saying that there was nothing improper with the contracts made between the committee and the consultancy and that they were for legitimate work.
Although there was no formal announcement of the 71-year-old's resignation, Takeda is expected to announce his decision at the JOC's executive board meeting in Tokyo later on Tuesday.
The IOC's ethics commission has opened an ethics file on Takeda, who chairs the IOC's marketing commission. Takeda has been a member of the IOC since 2012 and was president of the Tokyo 2020 bid committee.
https://www.voanews.com/a/kyodo-japan-committee-chief-takeda-to-resign-as-ioc-member/4837267.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/kyodo-japan-committee-chief-takeda-to-resign-as-ioc-member/4837267.htmlTue, 19 Mar 2019 00:50:44 -0400East AsiaEast AsiaArts & Culturewebdesk@voanews.com (Reuters)Tens of Thousands Converge on California 'Poppy Apocalypse'Like Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz," the Southern California city of Lake Elsinore is being overwhelmed by the power of the poppies.
About 150,000 people over the weekend flocked to see this year's rain-fed flaming orange patches of poppies lighting up the hillsides near the city of about 60,000 residents, about a 90-minute drive from either San Diego or Los Angeles.
Interstate 15 was a parking lot. People fainted in the heat; a dog romping through the fields was bitten by a rattlesnake.
The lure of poppies was used in the "Wizard of Oz" when the wicked witch infuses them with poison knowing Dorothy cannot resist them. She falls asleep in a vibrant field and the good witch casts a spell to make it snow to break the spell after her friends fail at trying to carry her out of the fields on their way to Oz.
Lake Elsinore had tried to prepare for the crush of people drawn by the super bloom, a rare occurrence that usually happens about once a decade because it requires a wet winter and warm temperatures that stay above freezing.
It offered a free shuttle service to the top viewing spots, but it wasn't enough.
Sunday traffic got so bad that Lake Elsinore officials requested law enforcement assistance from neighboring jurisdictions. At one point, the city pulled down the curtain and closed access to poppy-blanketed Walker Canyon.
"It was insane, absolutely insane," said Mayor Steve Manos, who described it as a "poppy apocalypse."
By Monday the #poppyshutdown announced by the city on Twitter was over and the road to the canyon was re-opened.
And people were streaming in again.
Young and old visitors to the Lake Elsinore area seemed equally enchanted as they snapped selfies against the natural carpet of iridescent orange.
Some contacted friends and family on video calls so they could share the beauty in real time. Artists propped canvasses on the side of the trail to paint the super bloom, while drones buzzed overhead.
Patty Bishop, 48, of nearby Lake Forest, was on her second visit. The native Californian had never seen such an explosion of color from the state flower. She battled traffic Sunday but that didn't deter her from going back Monday for another look. She got there at sunrise and stayed for hours.
"There's been so many in just one area," she said. "I think that's probably the main reason why I'm out here personally is because it's so beautiful."
Stephen Kim and his girlfriend got to Lake Elsinore even before sunrise Sunday to beat the crowds but there were already hundreds of people.
The two wedding photographers hiked on the designated trails with an engaged couple to do a photo shoot with the flowers in the background, but they were upset to see so many people going off-trail.
"There were lots of disrespectful tourists flying drones, letting their dogs off leash, taking photos in the fields, stomping on flowers to get on top of a rock for a selfie," said Kim, 24, of Carlsbad. "Looking at all these people, I realized this is not sustainable. This bubble is going to burst and it's going to get taken away because people are taking advantage. Four hours later I looked at Facebook and saw it was closed."
Kim said they were also distraught to see so much garbage. They picked up as many discarded water bottles as they could carry.
"You see this beautiful pristine photo of nature but then you look to the left and there's plastic Starbucks cups and water bottles on the trail and selfie sticks and people having road rage because some people were walking slower," he said.
Andy Macuga, honorary mayor of the desert town of Borrego Springs, another wildflower hotspot, said he feels for Lake Elsinore.
In 2017, a rain-fed super bloom brought in more than a half-million visitors to the town of 3,500. Restaurants ran out of food. Gas stations ran out of fuel. Traffic backed up on a single road for 20 miles.
The city is again experiencing a super bloom.
The crowds are back. Hotels are full. More than 6,000 people on a recent Saturday stopped at the visitor's center at the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California's largest park with 640,000 acres (1,000 square miles).
But it helps that the masses of blooms are appearing in several different areas this time, and some sections are fading, while others are lighting up with flowers, helping to disperse the crowds a bit.
Most importantly, Macuga said, the town's businesses prepared this time as if a major storm was about to hit. His restaurant, Carlee's, is averaging more than 550 meals a day, compared to 300 on a normal March day.
"We were completely caught off guard in 2017 because it was the first time that we had had a flower season like this with social media," he said. "It helps now knowing what's coming."
https://www.voanews.com/a/tens-of-thousands-converge-on-california-poppy-apocalypse-/4837240.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/tens-of-thousands-converge-on-california-poppy-apocalypse-/4837240.htmlMon, 18 Mar 2019 23:35:13 -0400Arts & CultureUSAArts & Culturewebdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)Homeless Nigerian Child Refugee Wins New York Chess ChampionshipWhen you think of a chess champion, you generally picture a serious gentleman in a suit and tie, stroking his beard while he stares at the board, contemplating his next move.
New York's newest champ defies all those categories -- he's an 8-year-old smiling Nigerian refugee who lives in a Manhattan homeless shelter with his family.
Tanitoluwa "Tani" Adewumi was crowned New York State's chess champion in the kindergarten through third-grade age group last week.
Coaches at the tournament were dazzled by Tani's aggressive style and stunned to find out that he's been playing chess for about a year, learning the game at public school.
He and his family, including an older brother, fled Nigeria in 2017 to escape Boko Haram terror threats against Christians.
Tani's father works two jobs and his mother is hoping to find work as a home health aide so the family can move out of the homeless shelter into their own place.
Then Tani can have his own room to store his seven chess trophies, including one that is almost as big as he is.
His next goal is a national championship for elementary school students in May. He said his ultimate goal is to become the world's youngest grandmaster.
https://www.voanews.com/a/homeless-nigerian-child-refugee-wins-new-york-chess-championship/4837223.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/homeless-nigerian-child-refugee-wins-new-york-chess-championship/4837223.htmlMon, 18 Mar 2019 23:15:01 -0400Arts & CultureUSAArts & Culturewebdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)Brooks & Dunn, Ray Stevens to Join Country Hall of FameCountry hit-making duo Brooks & Dunn are riding a resurgence of interest in '90s-era country music with a new album celebrating their top-selling singles, a longstanding Las Vegas residency and now an invitation to join the Country Music Hall of Fame.
The duo, along with comedic singer Ray Stevens and record label head Jerry Bradley, were announced Monday as this year's inductees and will be formally inducted during a ceremony later this year.
"There's a lot going on at this stage that generally doesn't happen," Ronnie Dunn told The Associated Press after the press conference inside the Hall of Fame's rotunda featuring plaques honoring the icons of the industry. Their new album, "Reboot," out April 5, features the duo on new versions of their hits with today's country stars such as Kacey Musgraves, Luke Combs and Kane Brown.
With more than 20 No. 1 country hits, the Grammy-winning pair is the most awarded duo by the Country Music Association, earning 14 vocal duo awards over their careers. They started as solo singers but were encouraged to join up as a duo and had immediate success with a string of hits, starting with "Brand New Man," "My Next Broken Heart," "Neon Moon" and "Boot Scootin' Boogie."
With multi-platinum sales, they became one of country's biggest touring acts for decades, combining Brooks' big personality and guitar work and Ronnie's singing.
"Back in the day, in the '90s, everything was sensationalized and country had hit arenas and stadiums," Dunn said. "We jumped right in on all fours."
"We were just weird enough that I think fans got that. These two guys don't really belong together, but they are up there doing it," Brooks said.
The duo split up in 2010 and they both started working on solo projects, but reunited in 2015 for what's turned into a four-year residency in Las Vegas with Reba McEntire.
Stevens, 80, is known for singing zany hits like "The Streak," but also sentimental ones like the Grammy-winning "Everything Is Beautiful." Stevens is a multi-faceted artist who started as a session musician in Nashville and has been a TV personality, producer, publisher, songwriter and entertainer for six decades. He recorded comedy albums and videos and opened a theater in Branson, Missouri. He currently has a dinner theater show in Nashville called "CabaRay."
"I love what I do. My dad used to say, 'When are you going to get a real job?'" Stevens told The Associated Press on Monday. "And I never wanted to get a real job."
Bradley was the former head of RCA Records' Nashville office and worked with Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton, Ronnie Milsap, Charley Pride and Alabama. Under his helm, the label produced the first platinum-selling country record, "Wanted! The Outlaws," a compilation album among Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser.
Bradley came from a dynasty of Music Row leaders, including his father, Owen Bradley, an influential producer, and uncle Harold Bradley, an acclaimed musician, who died in January. Jerry Bradley started to tear up as he talked about being inducted alongside his father and uncle, calling it the greatest honor that anyone can receive in country music.
https://www.voanews.com/a/brooks-dunn-ray-stevens-to-join-country-hall-of-fame/4836692.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/brooks-dunn-ray-stevens-to-join-country-hall-of-fame/4836692.htmlMon, 18 Mar 2019 19:45:59 -0400Arts & CultureArts & Culturewebdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)California Tile House: Couple's 25-Year Labor of LoveTheir house looks more like artwork in progress than an average California home. Every square inch in Cheri Pann’s and Gonzalo Duran’s house is covered with mosaic tiles. Angelina Bagdasaryan visited the couple. Anna Rice narrates her story.https://www.voanews.com/a/california-tile-house-couple-s-25-year-labor-of-love/4835569.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/california-tile-house-couple-s-25-year-labor-of-love/4835569.htmlMon, 18 Mar 2019 01:03:00 -0400Arts & CultureUSAArts & Culturewebdesk@voanews.com (Angelina Bagdasaryan)Dick Dale, King of Surf Guitar, 'Miserlou' Composer, DiesDick Dale, whose pounding, blaringly loud power-chord instrumentals on songs like “Miserlou” and “Let’s Go Trippin’” earned him the title King of the Surf Guitar, has died at age 81.
His former bassist Sam Bolle says Dick Dale passed away Saturday night. No other details were available.
Dale liked to say it was he and not the Beach Boys who invented surf music — and some critics have said he was right.
An avid surfer, Dale started building a devoted Los Angeles fan base in the late 1950s with repeated appearances at Newport Beach’s old Rendezvous Ballroom. He played “Miserlou,” ″The Wedge,” ″Night Rider” and other compositions at wall-rattling volume on a custom-made Fender Stratocaster guitar.
“Miserlou,” which would become his signature song, had been adapted from a Middle Eastern folk tune Dale heard as a child and later transformed into a thundering surf-rock instrumental.
His fingering style was so frenetic that he shredded guitar picks during songs, a technique that forced him to stash spares on his guitar’s body. “Better shred than dead,” he liked to joke, an expression that eventually became the title of a 1997 anthology released by Rhino Records.
Dale said he developed his musical style when he sought to merge the sounds of the crashing ocean waves he heard while surfing with melodies inspired by the rockabilly music he loved.
He pounded rather than plucked the strings of his guitar in a style he said he borrowed from an early musical hero, the great jazz drummer Gene Krupa.
“Dale pioneered a musical genre that Beach Boy Brian Wilson and others would later bring to fruition,” Rolling Stone magazine said in its “Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll” adding “Let’s Go Trippin’” was released in 1961, two months ahead of the Beach Boys’ first hit, “Surfin.’”
The magazine called Dale’s song “the harbinger of the ’60s surf music craze.”
Although popular around Southern California, Dale might have remained just a cult figure if surfing had not exploded in worldwide popularity during his peak creative years.
When the first of a series of “Beach Party” movies made to cash in on the phenomenon was released in 1963, it included Dick Dale and the Del-Tones performing “Secret Surfing Spot” as teen heartthrob Annette Funicello danced on the beach.
Dale had released his first album, “Surfer’s Choice,” a year earlier. He followed it with four more over the next two years while appearing in several “Beach Party” sequels and other surfer movies.
Other popular Dale songs included “Jungle Fever,” ″Shake-N-Stomp” and “Swingin’ and Surfin’.”
His star dimmed after the Beatles led music’s British invasion onto the pop charts in 1964 and his record label dropped him. His career also was sidelined by a battle with cancer in the 1960s and a serious foot infection in the 1970s that was the result of a surfing injury.
His musical influence was profound and included guitar virtuosos Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan and movie director Quentin Tarantino, who selected Dale’s “Miserlou,” as the theme song of his 1994 film “Pulp Fiction.” That helped pull the guitarist back into the pop-culture spotlight.
Dale himself had begun to launch a comeback with the 1987 film “Back to the Beach,” which reunited Funicello and her co-star Frankie Avalon as a middle-aged couple returning to their old surfing haunts. He teamed up with Vaughan to record the classic surf instrumental “Pipeline” for that film, earning the pair a Grammy nomination.
In 1993 he released “Tribal Thunder,” his first album of all new material in nearly 30 years. He followed it with “Unknown Territory” the following year.
Dale continued to tour into his 80s, in part he said to pay the medical bills that advancing age was saddling him with. Having beaten cancer in the 1960s, he suffered a serious recurrence in 2015.
Born Richard Anthony Monsour in Boston on May 4, 1937, Dale moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1954, where he immediately fell in love with surfing and the electric guitar.
As a child, he listened to Lebanese and Polish folk tunes played by his parents. Eventually he graduated to big band, swing, country and rockabilly.
Self-taught on guitar, the left-handed Dale couldn’t afford a custom-made model, so early on he played a standard right-hand guitar upside down and backward. That ended after a meeting with legendary guitar builder Leo Fender, who offered to make Dale his own left-handed model if he’d test a line of guitars and amplifiers Fender was developing.
“I became Leo’s personal guinea pig,” Dale told The Associated Press in 1997. “Anything that came out of the Fender company, I played.”
He played so loudly that he blew up one amplifier after another until a frustrated Fender built him a “Dick Dale Dual Showman” doubled-sized amp. It was a model that would become popular with aspiring Los Angeles guitarists.
As he began to become well known, he began calling himself Dick Dale, explaining years later that a radio disc jockey had suggested it was a better name for a rock star than Richard Monsour.
His surfer buddies had already nicknamed him King of the Surf Guitar, a title he said he initially resisted, fearing it would limit his audience. When the spirit of surfing caught on everywhere, however, he came to embrace the crown.
Dale is survived by his wife, Lana, and a son, James, a drummer who sometimes toured with his father.
https://www.voanews.com/a/dick-dale-king-of-surf-guitar-miserlou-composer-dies/4835527.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/dick-dale-king-of-surf-guitar-miserlou-composer-dies/4835527.htmlSun, 17 Mar 2019 21:11:42 -0400Arts & CultureArts & Culturewebdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)Pirro's Show Not on Fox Lineup, Week After Omar CommentsFox News weekend host Jeanine Pirro’s show didn’t air a week after her comments questioning U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar over her wearing a Muslim head covering. No explanation was given.
Pirro’s show, “Justice With Judge Jeanine,” was replaced Saturday night by other programming. The Fox News schedule for the upcoming weekend doesn’t include the show.
An email seeking comment was sent Sunday to Fox representatives.
President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday morning about Pirro’s absence, saying she should be brought back.
“Stop working soooo hard on being politically correct, which will only bring you down, and continue to fight for our Country. The losers all want what you have, don’t give it to them,” one of his tweets said.
Fox News had “strongly condemned” Pirro’s commentary on Omar, the first-term representative from Minnesota. Pirro had questioned whether Omar’s wearing of a hijab was “indicative of her adherence to Sharia law, which is in itself antithetical to the U.S. Constitution?”
Fox said Pirro’s views didn’t reflect the network and it had addressed the issue with her, but didn’t specify what that entailed.
Omar, in a tweet, thanked Fox for the statement, saying no one should question a person’s commitment to the Constitution because of a person’s faith or country of origin. Omar is a Somali immigrant.
Pirro said her intention had been to start a debate, but that being Muslim didn’t mean someone didn’t support the Constitution. She invited Omar to her show.
Pirro is the former district attorney from New York’s Westchester County.
https://www.voanews.com/a/pirro-s-show-not-on-fox-lineup-week-after-omar-comments/4834994.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/pirro-s-show-not-on-fox-lineup-week-after-omar-comments/4834994.htmlSun, 17 Mar 2019 14:20:18 -0400Arts & CultureArts & Culturewebdesk@voanews.com (Associated Press)Paris Exhibit Traces Post-Colonial Migration Through MusicAs rising nationalism and the crisis surrounding Britain’s exit from the European Union intensify divisions on the continent, a new exhibit in the French capital looks instead at a powerful unifier: Music.
The music the came with the postwar colonial migrations helped turn two of Europe’s most important hubs, London and Paris, into multicultural melting pots.
Rhythm and blues, reggae, rai and rock ’n’ roll — Europe and other Western regions got world music long before the term was invented. Even the Beatles were much more than a British brand — borrowing from Asia and sometimes West Africa.
How it blended into popular culture today is a central theme of a new exhibit that examines three decades of post-war migration to Paris and London — through music.
France and Britain needed extra manpower to fuel their fast-growing economies. They got it from former colonies that had just achieved independence. For immigrants in Paris, it was a tough beginning.
“Immigrants lived in special areas, what we call foyers,” said Stephane Malfettes. “There were a lot of strikes in the foyers de travelers. They were working in factories during the day — sharing the life of everybody — but at the end of the day, they vanished in their foyers.”
WATCH: Post-Colonial Migration to London, Paris Traced Via Music
Malfettes is the curator of the exhibit that opened this week at the Paris Museum of Immigration History. He says the immigrants were initially sidelined from France’s mainstream musical scene, as well. Things changed in the 1970s.
“The music became a very strong protest in the public space as an instrument of revolt and protest,” he said.
Across the English Channel, migrants in London also faced racism. But Martin Evans, another exhibit curator, said they were introducing the city to ska and reggae from Jamaica, music from East Africa, and calypso from Trinidad and Tobago.
“They become profoundly London,” Evans said. “And in a sense, I think that’s a measure of how much this migration has transformed London by the end of the 1980s.”
The parents of British musician and filmmaker Don Letts immigrated to Britain from Jamaica as part of the so-called Windrush generation. He says they wanted to integrate by denying their roots. It didn’t work.
“Ironically, it was their culture, particularly their music, that would capture the imagination of the white working-class kids,” he said. “And it was our culture that would actually help us to integrate with society.”
Letts says the cultural exchange went both ways.
“I was inspired by a lot of things that I grew up with. I grew up digging the Stones, the Beatles, Bowie, Roxy Music and all the rest of it,” he said.
Meanwhile, Paris by the 1980s had become a hub for African music — singers like Papa Wemba, Khaled, Youssou Ndour and Salif Keita. Music producer Martin Meissonnier was among their earliest fans — and producer for some of the biggest artists.
“Out of pleasure I was discovering all these new musics, and I thought it was a gold mine. It was fascinating. It was all these incredible bands,” Meissonnier said.
The musical fusion has left a powerful imprint on today’s artists. And it has changed not only how we think about music, but about each other.
https://www.voanews.com/a/paris-exhibit-traces-post-colonial-migration-through-music/4833897.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/paris-exhibit-traces-post-colonial-migration-through-music/4833897.htmlSun, 17 Mar 2019 06:10:42 -0400Arts & CultureArts & CultureEuropewebdesk@voanews.com (Lisa Bryant)https://www.voanews.com/a/paris-exhibit-traces-post-colonial-migration-through-music/4833897.html#commentsExhibit Traces Post-Colonial Migration to London and Paris Through MusicAs rising nationalism and the crisis surrounding Britain's exit from the European Union intensify divisions on the continent, a new exhibit in Paris looks instead at a powerful unifier. Music arriving with postwar colonial migrations helped turn two of Europe's most important hubs, London and Paris, into multicultural melting pots. From Paris, Lisa Bryant reports for VOA.https://www.voanews.com/a/exhibit-traces-post-colonial-migration-to-london-and-paris-through-music/4833812.html
https://www.voanews.com/a/exhibit-traces-post-colonial-migration-to-london-and-paris-through-music/4833812.htmlSun, 17 Mar 2019 06:00:00 -0400Arts & CultureArts & CultureEuropewebdesk@voanews.com (Lisa Bryant)